Industrial Valley

Ruth McKenney's compelling novel of class and industrial conflict in Akron, Ohio, first appeared in 1939 and was widely acclaimed. McKenney was a capable journalist who had spent a year and a half in Akron, the heart of the tire industry, a city that she said "smells like a rubber band smoldering in an ashtray."

Industrial Valley vividly portrays an industrial city crippled by the country's economic failures and also provides a stirring example of fiction predicated on social and political principles. It will intrigue readers for its contemporary as well as its historical implications. The images McKenney evokes of workers confused and enraged by a moribund economy seem startlingly relevant today.

Introduction by Daniel Nelson
To Begin With
Book One: JANUARY 1, 1932, TO JUNE 16, 1933
Book Two: JUNE 26, 1933, TO FEBRUARY 14, 1936
Book Three: FEBRUARY 14, 1936, TO MARCH 21, 1936
And Three Years After

Press Reviews

Industrial Valley

"For sheer dramatic excitement, for effective organization as a story, there isn't one among all the strike novels to match this essentially true story."—Lewis Gannett, New York Herald Tribune

Industrial Valley

"Industrial Valley is perhaps the best American example of proletarian literature. Even though it is based completely on fact, I also offer it as one of our best collective novels."—Malcolm Cowley, New Republic

Industrial Valley

'This is reporting with a purpose; it is fact selected to provide illumination, not fact reported as a record of rainfall, and the result is brilliant history."—Albert Maltz, New Masses

Industrial Valley

"Vividly portrays an industrial city crippled by the country's economic failures and also provides a stirring example of fiction predicated on social and political principles."—Midwest Book Review